ART; In the Company of Eakins

Published: January 12, 2007

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''The Gross Clinic'' will join Eakins's portrait of Walt Whitman. Whitman thought Eakins painted the truth, and you can discern Eakins's affection in the portrait: the poet is a ruddy old man, Santalike, lushly painted in the style of Frans Hals. It's charming, but sentimental. Neither quality was Eakins's strength.

College of Physicians

Last stop on the way to the Philadelphia Museum: the lobby of the College of Physicians, where a full-length portrait of William Thomson, an ophthalmologist, is a little hard to see behind reflective glass, and in the glare of a chandelier. But it's grand. Cross-legged, an eye chart dimly visible on the wall behind him, Thomson sits in a chair casually leaning an elbow on the edge of a table, pensive with a faraway expression. Eakins lavished particular attention on the Oriental carpet in the foreground, an excuse to show off his low-key virtuosity.

Philadelphia Museum

I happened to arrive at the Philadelphia Museum just after ''The Gross Clinic'' went on view in front of an early evening crowd that seemed nearly as large as the number of people that Jefferson University said visited the picture in an entire year when it was there. The work looked marvelous. Anne d'Harnoncourt, the director, beamed.

So the picture is no longer at the school for medical students to contemplate as the alumni who donated it a century ago wished.

But at least it's now in plain sight, not far away, among its artistic peers, still in the city whose legacy it celebrates.

Scalpel and Palette
These are the places visited by Michael Kimmelman on his Eakins tour. Except St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, they are all in Philadelphia.

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA, Mutter Museum, 19 South 22nd Street, (215) 563-3737; collphyphil.org. Portrait of William Thomson, in the lobby. The lobby can be entered at no charge; daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Museum admission, $12; $8 for students and those 65+ and ages 6 to 18; free for those under 6.

PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, 118 North Broad Street, (215) 972-7600; pafa .org. Portrait of Walt Whitman can be seen during regular hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. An archive of Eakins drawings and photographs is open to specialists and students by appointment. $7; $6 for students and 62+; $5 for children.

ST. CHARLES BORROMEO SEMINARY, 100 East Wynnewood Road, Wynnewood, Pa., (610) 785-6274; scs.edu. Six portraits, including James Flaherty, Patrick Garvey, the Right Rev. James F. Loughlin, the Rev. James P. Turner and Archbishop James Frederick Wood, in the Eakins Room. Access by reservation, or at an open house on Oct. 28, noon to 5 p.m.

Photos: Thomas Eakins's 1905 portrait of Dr. William Smith Forbes hangs in Thomas Jefferson University's Alumni Hall in Philadelphia. (Photo by Thomas Jefferson University)(pg. E39); Eakins's 1874 portrait of Benjamin Howard Rand is at Thomas Jefferson University. (Photo by Thomas Jefferson University); Thomas Eakins's ''Gross Clinic,'' which came close to leaving Philadelphia, is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until March. (Photo by Matt Rourke/Associated Press); Eakins's 1888 Walt Whitman portrait is at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. (Photo by Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)(pg. E46)